Empowering the activist: Using framing devices on activist organizations’ web sites

The researchers analyzed activist organization web sites to determine the framing techniques employed in their public relations messages. The macro framework for this study was based on the work of sociologists David Snow and Robert Benford, who focus on how social activist organizations frame their messages. At the micro level, the researchers examined the web sites for the presence or absence of five devices identified by Gamson and Modigliani (American Journal of Sociology 1989;95:1–37) as commonly used when framing issues.     

Conserving complexity: A complex systems paradigm and framework to study public relations’ contribution to grand challenges

Sustainable development poses a grand challenge for society, addressed by organisations through their public relations activities. Grand challenges are complex by nature and call for nontrivial solutions whose effects show at the level of society. That is why studying public relations’ contribution to grand challenges requires a macro perspective that accounts for the dynamic interaction between individual, organisational, and system levels in a digital communication environment. This paper offers a new paradigm to analyse organisations’ significant and at times undue impact on grand challenges through public relations. It develops a framework inspired by complex adaptive systems thinking and adopts its ten properties for public relations: emergence, adaptivity, heterogeneous actors, nonlinear effects, feedback mechanisms, self-organisation, phase transitions, networks, scaling, and cooperation. The paper applies the framework to the example of sustainable development. It shows why research on grand challenges requires a holistic perspective and how it can help study digitally born communication phenomena. The proposed complex systems paradigm provides space for critical, social scientific, and interpretative research lines in public relations. Inquiries start from the grand challenge and study the communicative interactions between organisations and other actors from existing theory while accounting for the ten properties of complex adaptive systems. The paper outlines how future research can enrich the study of public relations and discusses its limits.     

Feeling the Beat and Feeling Better: Musical Experience,Emotional Reflection,and Music as a Technology of Mental Health

Using data from the 1999 Arts and Religion Survey, this article builds on the work of Tia DeNora and the understanding of music as a technology of health by focusing on an important aspect of music's impact on mental health, emotional reflection. The study first examines the relationship between musical experiences and the perceived effectiveness of music as a coping tool in everyday life. The results indicate that musical experience is positively associated with the perception of music as an effective coping mechanism, controlling for relevant demographic and artistic factors included in the survey. The analysis then assesses the relationship between music's perceived effectiveness as a coping mechanism and emotional reflection, indicating a positive association between the two. Aesthetic disposition and parental education are also positive predictors of using music to cope and emotional reflection. The study demonstrates that those who value music as a means of coping may be more emotionally reflective and in turn, experience benefits related to positive mental health. The results also highlight the importance of considering both micro‐ and macro‐theoretical approaches to understanding musical practices and their role in health improvement.     

Incorporating flow into practice and performance

In the music profession, individuals often work under stress filled conditions. This is especially true for individuals making their living as performing musicians. Musical performance anxiety has been well documented in both students and professionals. For some, the experience may lead to a termination of what might otherwise remain a successful performing career. Humans are susceptible to anxiety and so the phenomenon of musical performance anxiety is not likely to disappear. Learning how to effectively deal with musical performance anxiety is paramount for those in the performing arts. Entering a state of flow, in which there is total absorption in an activity, allows for the possiblity of any ensuing anxiety to become facilitative, rather than debilitative. This article will discuss several characteristics of flow, as defined by Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, and provide practical applications for musical practice and performance in an attempt to counterbalance musical performance anxiety. Musicians will benefit from a closer examination of the elements of flow and means of incorporating these elements into practice and performance.     

Merging Micro and Macro Intervention: Social Work Practice With Groups in the Community

Clinical or micro intervention predominates in social work education and practice. The prevailing assumption in social work practice and education is that one engages in either micro or macro intervention. In this article, we describe how these interventions may be merged into an integrated whole through social work practice with groups. The conceptual and evidence base of community work is summarized, as are efforts to identify practice skills that overlap both approaches. We assert that group work is ideally suited to promote individual empowerment and community change. Case examples illustrate the relative ease with which tasks and skills of group work at the micro level can be used in group work practice in the community. Implications for social work education are discussed.     

Gender‐Related Opportunities and Turnover: The Case of Medical Sector Employees

This study examined the relationships between gender, objective and perceived work‐related opportunities, and turnover behavior. This was achieved using an interdisciplinary approach that combined the macro‐level perspective on opportunities in internal and external labor markets, with the micro‐level perspective of individual perceptions of opportunities. The results revealed that the opportunities–turnover linkage is gender‐specific rather than gender‐neutral. Women's turnover behavior was affected by their ‘perception’ of employment opportunities in the organizational and local labor markets. By contrast, men's turnover behavior was affected by ‘objective’, organizational and local labor market conditions. These findings indicate that the objective opportunities of the work market may be compatible with men’s, but not women’s, work needs and hence question existing assumptions of a ‘gender‐neutral’ effect of opportunities on turnover decisions.     

Time for Each Other: Work and Family Constraints Among Couples

Little is known about couples' shared time and how actual time spent together is associated with well‐being. In this study, the authors investigated how work and family demands are related to couples' shared time (total and exclusive) and individual well‐being (happiness, meaningfulness, and stress) when with one's spouse. They used individual‐level data from the 2003–2010 American Time Use Survey (N = 46,883), including the 2010 Well‐Being Module. The results indicated that individuals in full‐time working dual‐earner couples spend similar amounts of time together as individuals in traditional breadwinner–homemaker arrangements on weekdays after accounting for daily work demands. The findings also show that parents share significantly less total and exclusive spousal time together than nonparents, though there is considerable variation among parents by age of the youngest child. Of significance is that individuals experience greater happiness and meaning and less stress during time spent with a spouse opposed to time spent apart.     

Pete Rozelle: A historical review of how the NFL commissioner used public relations

Few public relations practitioners rise to the level of head of an organization; therefore, this study on former National Football League Commissioner Pete Rozelle presents a unique opportunity to examine how an organizational leader with PR work experience managed a business operation. Drawing upon unique historical records, this study demonstrated how Rozelle used his public relations background to help make the NFL America's number one sport (in terms of revenue and in fan polling).     

The Flag or the Pocketbook: To What are Immigrants a Threat

An increasing number of immigrants and rising unemployment rates are widely thought to contribute to the electoral success of extreme right parties in Western Europe. However, no study explicitly posits the causal mechanism that links the aggregate level factors of immigration and unemployment to the electoral success of extreme right parties, and systematically analyzes whether and how this mechanism works. Thus, the causal connection between immigration, unemployment and extreme right success remains at best ambiguous. I argue that the causal mechanism linking immigration and unemployment to extreme right electoral performance is the development of anti‐immigrant attitudes at the individual level. In this paper, I examine how unemployment and immigration affect individuals’ attitudes toward immigrants. This examination furthers our understanding of the actual dynamics of how unemployment and immigration influences the electoral success of extreme right parties. I find that greater unemployment rates increase the probability that an individual will have an anti‐immigrant attitude only when immigration is already at a high level. Similarly, increasing immigration alone does not always increase the probability that an individual will have an anti‐immigrant attitude.     

Sex Composition,Masculinity Stereotype Dissimilarity and the Quality of Men's Workplace Social Relations

Previous research suggests that the quality of men's work group social relations varies depending on the sex composition of the work unit. Previous studies also suggest that men derive different benefits from working with other men than with women and that the higher status associated with men and masculinity advantages men in their relations with women workers. Previous sex composition studies tell us little, however, about the extent to which the quality of men's work group social relations with women and other men depends on how well a man fits dominant masculinity stereotypes. Drawing on sex composition and gender constructionist approaches to gender and work I investigate in this study the effects of men's individual similarity to masculinity stereotypes on the affective quality of their social relations with coworkers, given the sex composition of their work groups. The data for this study consist of male, mostly white, non‐faculty employees of a public university in the northwest United States. I discuss my results in terms of both individual outcomes and implications for understanding sex and gender inequalities in work organizations.     

Social responsibility and work conditions: building a reference label, Démarche T®

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is now considered in large and global companies and the recent publication of the ISO 26000 standard clarifies the targets. Based on our consultancy's experience for fifteen years in ergonomics mainly in French small and medium enterprises, we developed a label to coax and value efforts of companies in dealing with health and safety at the work place as required by ISO 26000 paragraph 6.4. The formal approach of ISO describes what should be achieved but gives no cue on how actual conditions of work should be improved. The label, called Démarche T (ie Process W where W stands for work) aims the management of work conditions as a process, giving visibility and credit to companies for their continuous involvement in the matter. We describe the items and processes that are part of our assessment. We first conduct an ergonomic diagnosis including the analysis of records on health, physical and psychological well-being, observations at the workplace and interviews with the workers. This diagnosis is followed by recommendations. The fulfillment of these is assessed yearly. Items under assessment include: - ergonomics, health and safety in the companies statements and their impact in actual project management; - relations with workers through the committee for health and safety; - actual results on health, safety and work conditions. On a local level, we give the companies passing the label a competitive edge in recruiting better candidates motivated by good work conditions, and help them fulfill ISO 26000 requirements, an increasingly decisive advantage to benefit from public regional and European support. Our paper describes the diagnosis and follow-up process.     

Laughter in the Clinic: Humor as Social Organization

While humor has been studied empirically in a wide variety of organizational settings, other than Coser's (1959) study of a private psychiatric hospital, its actual usage in medical locales has barely been addressed. This article extends Coser's analysis by examining humor as a central dimension of social organization in a university-based outpatient clinic. Using observational data gathered during a two-year period, we examine interactions between key participants in clinic life: attending physicians and residents; the residents themselves; residents and nurses; residents/attending physicians and patients; and finally, the researchers and clinic personnel. We demonstrate how humor may bond members through laughter about common concerns and problems, while also marking them off from others with differing concerns. As such, it ideally illustrates the micro/macro interplay of face-to-face relations and structural contexts.     

Debunking macro myths: findings from recent graduates about jobs,salaries, and skills

Research suggests that interest in macro social work practice is declining, a trend that has been well documented in the United States. Studies find that social work educators and practitioners may foster beliefs among MSW students that discredit macro practice and associated skills while asserting macro graduates are likely to face poorer employment prospects and lower salaries than micro counterparts as they start their careers. This study builds on and extends this literature by examining 27 skills in their current job using a five-point Likert-type scale among the early career trajectory of MSW alumni (N = 182) who graduated between 2008 and 2012 from a public social work institution in the southeastern United States. The skills included in the survey, as well as decisions about how to group them into scales, were made based on theoretical links between the skills by macro faculty members. Findings highlight the use of macro practice skills regardless of concentration focus, no differences in salary, or the time it takes to find employment between micro and macro alumni. Implications for social work education are discussed.     

Predicting Earnings Among Immigrants To Canada: The Role Of Source Country

The current study examines the importance of country of origin in predicting the labour market earnings among recent immigrants to Canada. The authors argue that, in addition to individual‐level characteristics associated with immigrant capital, macro‐level features associated with immigrant origins must be taken into account when considering the economic performance of immigrants in their host country. Country‐level factors are said to accompany immigrants to their destination country, which generate disparities in the “quality” of immigrants’ human and social capital across origin groups, as well as differences in how they are received by the resident population. The present study uses random effects multilevel modelling to investigate the extent to which immigrant incomes vary randomly across source country while taking into consideration individual‐level characteristics selected on the basis of human capital, social capital, and discrimination theories. Multilevel regression analysis confirms that immigrant incomes indeed vary significantly by country of origin, though the effect is small. Furthermore, it is revealed that the gross domestic product (GDP) of the sending country explains much of the level 2 variability in the labour market earnings of recent immigrants, as well as the relationship between racial minority status and immigrant incomes. The practical significance and policy implications of these findings are discussed.     

Recalibrating micro and macro social work: student perceptions of social action

ABSTRACT

As underscored by their professional code of ethics, all social workers are called to engage in social action that advances social justice. Yet, the focus of the profession has drifted toward individual treatment and away from social reform. Drawing upon data from an online survey of graduate social work students (N= 199) in the United States, this study explores the role of student perceptions relating to the importance of and their confidence in engaging in social action. Specifically, we assess whether perceptions vary according to practice level (micro or macro), social identity, or survey completion date (before or after the 2016 United States presidential election). Findings suggest that respondents exhibit a high degree of interest and confidence in social action with limited variation on the basis of their practice level or background characteristics. Furthermore, the 2016 presidential election did little to change perceptions of social action. This suggests that the profession’s marginalization of macro practice is not necessarily driven by student interest or confidence.     

Governing through accountability: Gendered moral selves and the (im)possibilities of resistance in the neoliberal university

Drawing on Judith Butler's early work on gender as performance and her later work on the ethically accountable subject, this study examines the production of gendered moral subjects under neoliberal governance in contemporary academia. The analysis of 40 semi‐structured in‐depth interviews with postdoc researchers and assistant, associate and full professors in a Belgian university reveals how in academics’ narratives of their ethical relations of (non‐)accountability towards multiple stakeholders, gendered subjects are performed along the heterosexual matrix reproducing the gender binary. The conjunction of gendered and ethical demands imposed through relations of accountability further opens up distinctively gendered possibilities of consent and resistance under neoliberal governance. We advance the extant literature on gender in academia which largely focuses on women's symbolic struggle to (dis)identify with a masculine professional norm. By locating power in the gendered relations of accountability towards multiple others, it re‐conceptualizes gender as an ontological struggle in the constitution of the self as moral along gendered norms. The study rejoins recent scholarship that calls for the recognition and elaboration of a relational ethics by showing how such ethics enables the emergence of open and responsive subjectivities in relations of accountability.     

BLOOD MATH

The text takes the form of a dialogue - a series of spoken fragments developed in correspondence by Phelan and Heathfield and written in an interleaved structure. The performance of this dialogue employed slide imagery and a musical score, and the correspondence was pursued through a game of spelling in which the participants gradually chalked out a word on a board. Each letter of the word stands for a thematic concern elaborated in the speaker's writing. Working from various anthropological, psychoanalytic and philosophical discourses on the nature of the gift, the dialogue examines the place of performance within various economies of cultural and personal exchange. Writing letters to one another, the authors move through the intertexts of Beckett, Boltanski, Heidegger, Nabokov and Franko B. The resonance of the act of giving is explored as it is played out in the relations between language and loss, calculation and love, memory and the object, the body and sacrifice, the arts of living and the arts of death. Aside from its conceptual address the presentation explores possibilities within the practice of performative writing and opens the form of the scholarly paper.     

Protecting the Inclusion of Macro Content in Generalist Practice

Maintaining the integrity of macro focused curriculum content in a generalist academic program is a central issue in social work education. The authors describe forces affecting social work education that have resulted in an increased focus on micro level practice to the detriment of macro level practice. They present a generalist curriculum model for highlighting macro focused curriculum content. The model's components include: (1) curriculum goals; (2) curriculum themes; (3) liberal arts foundation; and (4) curriculum content and learning strategies. The authors highlight the model's advantages for creating a pro-activist educational atmosphere.     

Teaching Note—Tweeting Macro Practice: Social Media in the Social Work Classroom

ABSTRACT

Despite its ubiquity, social work educators are just beginning to harness social media in teaching. In this teaching note, we discuss our use of Twitter in a bachelor’s-level macro Human Behavior in the Social Environment course. We present results from a survey of 45 students designed to assess their perceptions of Twitter use in the classroom and, in particular, as a macro social work learning tool. Students appreciated using social media in the course and reported that Twitter was a valuable professional social work tool. We explore how social work educators can provide an innovative classroom experience that incorporates ethical and professional use of social media and demonstrate how we used Twitter to apply macro practice competencies.     

Barriers to Women's Advancement in Underground Coal Mining

Abstract This paper uses a middle‐range feminist theory by Reskin and Roos (1987) to examine how the sexualization of work relations, along with formal practices governing promotion at a large coal mine in central Appalachia, has led to job‐level sex segregation underground. Analyses of qualitative data from nonparticipant observation, in‐depth interviews with 10 coal mining women, and company documents reveal that sexualization represents men's power to stigmatize women as inferior workers and to maintain the stereotypes for assigning work to women. Formal practices, particularly training, seniority, and posting and bidding procedures, legitimize the process of matching women workers with gender‐typed jobs. Coal mining women's resistance is reflected in their awareness of how men's stereotypes are used and in their continual individual efforts to prove their competence as coal miners.